I can’t believe it, and you should either. Yesterday, I taught a lesson on Story Boarding. Just so you know, a story board is simply a visual representation of a story and plot, done in boxes, to keep an animator on track during an animation. It’s like rough draft. It shows the key movements and camera angles used for the story.

So I decide to teach the lesson by drawing story boards with the students, on the board. I figure the eassiest stories will be children’s nursery rhymes because everyone knows them, and they are short. I was wrong.

Today’s youth don’t know any nursery rhymes! Really! They looked at me like I was one of those Bing Commercials as I rattled off rhyme after rhyme. Now this is something can’t blame on the students. I can’t. Nursery Rhymes are something you learn before 1st grade, and essentially before you learn to read. That means someone has to read them to you. So in this instance, I do blame the parents.

Nursery Rhymes are an essential part of our culture. They are a stepping stone to other things, and actually come up from time to time in pop-culture. These kids are missing so much, and why? Because no one read to them.

So today, I brought in one of Son’s Mother Goose Books, and believe me, he was not happy about it. I promised him I’d bring it back. I know that at the high school age, the kids are too old to enjoy the rhymes, and not yet old enough to understand what they’ve missed. They probably won’t care at all, but at least they are being exposed, and someday, it might come up again. Who knows, maybe they will remember this lesson, and they will be able to contribute to the conversation.